ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on constructions and imaginings of urban subjectivity in the media city. For increasing numbers of urban dwellers, everyday life is mediated life: many individuals depend on apps to navigate the city’s spatial, cultural, and economic interfaces; urban sociality relies on social media networks; and imaginings of urban life are mediated by representations on smartphone and television screens. The growing, but unequal, mediation of urban lives raises important questions about the ways urban subjects are constituted in and through the media: who and how is seen, heard, and recognized in the media city? We identify “the stranger” as the par excellence subject of the media city. As shown, the stranger of the media city has different incarnations, being produced through cosmopolitanism, othering, and flanerie.
